1:25 AM,
Jan. 2, 2014

Philip Petrone, 45, of Middletown, on Monday visited the One-Stop Career Center in Neptune to open a second unemployment claim.

Written by

Anthony Panissidi
| @APPanissidi

Instead of ringing in a year closer to retirement, Dorothy Clayton lamented another one without work.

Clayton last held a job in November 2011. Since then, the 63-year-old widow, who lives in the West Belmar section of Wall, says state and federal unemployment benefits helped her through each day, even though the money could not cover some of her larger bills, including her mortgage payments.

Last Saturday, Clayton joined an estimated 79,000 New Jerseyans, among 1.3 million Americans, facing a much larger problem - the immediate end of the federal government's extension of unemployment ...